1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to surgical instruments, and more particularly, to surgical instruments having cords or cables connecting the instrument within a sterile field to equipment outside the sterile field.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of surgical devices are known in the art for performing modern surgery. Of such devices, many are directed to surgical instruments connected to support equipment by cords including electrical cords, optical fibers, tubes, hoses, or other types of cables. Typically, the surgical instrument is used within the sterile field of a surgery with the support equipment outside the sterile surgical field. Great care must be taken to assure the instrument and portions of its cable that are within the sterile field remain sterile. It is also important to prevent non-sterile portions of the cable from entering the sterile field. However, it is not uncommon for sterile portions of the cable to hang down out of the sterile field raising the question of whether they are contaminated as the instrument is moved during surgery. It is also not uncommon for the instrument to fall out of the sterile field, often dragged by the weight of its own cable.
For example, one such instrument commonly used in surgery is the electrocautery pencil, which is used to cut and coagulate tissue during surgery. Typically electrocautery pencils are kept sterile by clipping a plastic holster to the sterile drape. When not in use, the device is placed into the holster until needed again. However, there are frequently problems with a surgeon missing the holster or otherwise dropping the instrument and/or its cord out of the sterile field. When this happens, a new, sterile electrocautery pencil and cord must be obtained for use during the remainder of the procedure.
The efforts required for keeping instruments and their respective cables within the sterile field add to the stress and fatigue experienced by surgeons and nurses/assistants during surgery, and can therefore lead to fatigue and stress induced complications during surgery. Moreover, when an instrument is lost from the sterile field and must be replaced, attention is taken away from the surgical task at hand and the resulting distraction can lead to complications. The delay caused by having to replace an instrument at a critical time during a procedure can further lead to complications.
Some solutions have been proposed for dealing with the issue of instrument cables in the sterile field during surgery. U.S. Pat. No. 4,174,816 to Olson describes a retractor device for cords of surgical instruments, which has a housing with several spring loaded reel pulleys for allowing the cord to be withdrawn and retracted as needed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,619 to Galazaka describes another device for reeling surgical cords in and out that uses a ratchet mechanism to control when the reel retracts the cord. While these devices can be used to help keep instruments and cords within sterile fields, they add considerable bulk to the surgical instruments, and if designed to be reusable, they add to the cost of sterilization. One solution to the cost problem is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,863 to Dines, which describes a disposable surgical cord reel. However, the device described by Dines still adds considerable bulk to the surgical instrument being used.
Such conventional methods and systems of keeping surgical devices and sterile portions of their cables within a sterile field have been generally considered satisfactory for their intended purpose. However, it would be beneficial to provide a way of reliably keeping sterile portions of surgical instruments within a sterile field. It would also be beneficial to provide systems and methods that can keep sterile portions of surgical devices within a sterile field with minimal effort on the part of surgeons and nurses/assistants during surgery, without adding considerable bulk and cost. The present invention provides a solution for these problems.